A memorial begins to grow in front of 19 Wyndham Drive in Carmel on May 4, 2012, days after a fire killed four members of the Sullivan family. / Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal News

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Tom Sullivan Jr. holds his father's police hat outside St. James the Apostle Church in Carmel after the funeral for his family on May 5, 2012. / Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal News

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CARMEL — The lone survivor of a fire that killed his parents and two sisters at their home last May repeatedly told police he had no idea what started the blaze, only suggesting near the end of a five-hour interrogation that an ember from his cigarette “probably” sparked it.

“I want answers just as much as you do; it’s my own family that died,” Thomas Sullivan Jr., then 20, told Carmel police more than 3 1/2 hours into being questioned May 2, 2012, the day after the fire. “I don’t know who started the fire. … OK, I’ll take that to the death of me. I don’t know who started that.”

The Journal News obtained a heavily redacted, 223-page transcript of the video-recorded interrogation from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, where the interview was conducted. The newspaper successfully appealed a partial denial last year of a Freedom of Information Law request for records on the case and was charged $1,936.47 for the transcript after sheriff’s officials said production costs exceeded their $393.44 estimate. It marks the first time records of anything Sullivan told police have been released.

The transcript suggests Sullivan wasn’t convinced his cigarette ember ignited mulch near the front porch steps, where it smoldered for 5 1/2 hours before fire consumed the house. It also shows he gave two different accounts of how he tried to put out what he said was his last cigarette at 8 p.m. April 30, roughly six hours before the fire was reported.

The transcript suggests Sullivan wasn’t convinced his cigarette ember ignited mulch near the front porch steps, where it smoldered for 5 1/2 hours before fire consumed the house. It also shows he gave two different accounts of how he tried to put out what he said was his last cigarette at 8 p.m. April 30, roughly six hours before the fire was reported.

Sullivan’s father, 48-year-old Larchmont police Capt. Thomas Sullivan Sr.; mother, Donna Sullivan, 47; and sisters Meaghan, 17, and Mairead, 15, died in the blaze at 19 Wyndham Lane. Carmel police said they stand by their finding five weeks after the interrogation that the fire was an accident, likely caused by the cigarette ember.

A fire investigation expert who wasn’t involved in the probe told The Journal News it would be possible for the ember to ignite mulch, causing the mulch to smolder for hours. And a retired FBI agent, who has done hundreds of interviews and/or interrogations, said because police read Sullivan Jr. his Miranda rights, it’s clear they considered him a suspect at the time.

Sullivan, who waived his Miranda rights, was upfront with investigators about smoking two cigarettes at least 90 minutes apart on the front porch that night. However, when they asked him to speculate on the cause of the blaze, he initially declined, saying he didn’t “have a clue.” He doubted anyone would want to harm his family. If anything, he said, he thinks “it was just like an accidental thing.” Nearly 21/2 hours into the interview, he told them, “I think at this point, it’s a matter of talking to other people.”

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When he finally speculated that a cigarette ember could have ignited mulch, he gave two different accounts of how he tried to put out his last cigarette. He first told investigators he put it “out on the grass” and it could have “went on the mulch,” but he didn’t see a burning ember. As investigators pressed him, he offered a different account, saying he squeezed out the burning portion of the cigarette, flicking it on the mulch around a tree. He threw the cigarette butt in the garbage.

“When I put the cigarette out, I put the butt, like I put it over the porch,” he said. “I squeezed it ... to get it all out, and the burning part fell by the tree. I don’t know if that’s what started it or not, but that’s probably what it was.”

Sullivan, who smoked a cigarette during the interview and flicked ashes out a Sheriff’s Office window, told investigators he went to bed shortly after 10 p.m. April 30.

Carmel police Lt. Brian Karst told The Journal News last month that Sullivan “was very cooperative throughout a very difficult process for him and his family.” Karst declined to comment on anything Sullivan said, saying it’s the Police Department’s position that the transcript was not subject to release under the Freedom of Information Law.

“There’s nothing subsequent to the year passing, there’s no new information or anything that would change our perspective on how the fire occurred,” Karst said.

If the burning part of the cigarette was thrown into mulch, it could ignite the mulch and cause it to smolder for five or six hours or longer, said Richard Meier, staff expert, fire and explosion analyst for John A. Kennedy & Associates, a fire investigation firm in Sarasota, Fla. Similar to a piece of charcoal burning, someone could look at the mulch and see a faint glow or no sign of burning, he said.

“The mulch will be what begins to burn and smolder,” Meier said. “It’s called glowing combustion. Glowing combustion is where you do not have a visible flame.”

Smoking habits

The transcript offers insight into Sullivan’s smoking habits. It shows he didn’t keep an ashtray on the front porch, had left ashes outside a window before, “between the window and the screen,” and his cigarette embers weren’t always out.

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Karst and Detective Michael Russo, who questioned Sullivan, focused on his smoking habits early in the interview after Sullivan recounted the first part of his day on April 30. Sullivan also had been interviewed at Danbury (Conn.) Hospital, where he was taken after the fire for possible smoke inhalation.

Sullivan, who said he was the only smoker in the family, noted smoking his first cigarette between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m. — both on the front porch. He kept his Newport cigarettes in his sweatshirt, lighting them with a lighter.

“I just go outside, take one, light it, and then when I’m done with it, I go on the sidewalk, to like where the grass area is. I swipe it on the ground, and then I come back and throw out the cigarette butt,” Sullivan said. “Just like, but obviously, I make sure it’s not lit anymore.”

He acknowledged not having an ashtray on the porch “is a problem,” but said, “I usually just flick it, like whatever, like I know because the ashes just blow away, so it doesn’t really matter.”

In the past, he’s put ashes “outside the window, like between the window and the screen,” but hadn’t done it in about a year and didn’t do it the night of the fire, he said. When he put ashes there, he would shut the window, “and then, like the next day I know the ashes are probably not like burning or anything, and then I would put like the ashes from it in the garbage.”

Late in the interview, he told investigators that when he puts cigarettes out on the grass, “sometimes they are still lit, though,” with the burning part left behind.

Read his rights

Investigators covered many topics, questioning whether family members had conflicts that would prompt someone to target them, asking him about cases his father was working on and having him recount his escape from the blaze. When asked whether his parents ever talked to him about a life insurance policy or will, Sullivan said they hadn’t.

James Wedick, a retired FBI agent who served with the bureau 34 years and headed a white-collar corruption squad in Sacramento, Calif., said police could have interviewed Sullivan as a fire victim, similar to how they would interview a bank robbery victim. Instead, they read him his Miranda rights, affording him the chance to get a lawyer, Wedick said.

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“They had him as a suspect in the fire, and they wanted to use any information that he said later in a court of law, if in fact, the prosecutors wanted to charge him,” he said.

Some topics discussed with Sullivan weren’t clear. The Sheriff’s Office partly or fully redacted more than 100 pages, citing FOIL exemptions including unwarranted invasion of privacy, disclosure of which “would result in personal hardship to a person.” The office produced the transcript at The Journal News’ request as a compromise, saying releasing the video would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy given the emotion it shows.

Information about Sullivan’s parents’ relationship with each other, his relationship with his father and some questions and answers about whether the fire was an accident were blacked out. Some of what’s redacted could shed light on suspicions police had and why they questioned Sullivan for five hours, Wedick said.

“It sounds like there might be a piece of the story we don’t know,” he said.

Investigators reached their conclusion on the fire’s cause after they did a test burn, subpoenaed Sullivan Jr.’s cellphone records and stopped at local gas stations to see whether anyone filled gas cans. They also sent Sullivan Jr.’s shorts and his mother’s clothing to a state police crime lab to test for accelerants. None were found. Gas and electrical failures also were ruled out. When they announced their finding in June, investigators said high winds and dry weather factored into the blaze.

In a statement last month police said, “we are resolute in our findings as no stone was left unturned.” Sullivan is continuing the grieving process, Karst said. “Certainly we support his recovery and hope he has received closure and can move forward with his life.”